26 May 2006

The Great Barrier Reef: The Rest of the Story

Let's wrap up this trip to the Great Barrier Reef. The first picture was taken at a tourist shop right before we boarded the ship. Heather made me do it. That's all I have to say about that.The second picture is me as the captain. This isn't on our cruise ship, but on our stroll down the river after the croc farm. Note the captain's hat. I actually steered the boat, too.The last picture is a longer story. It all began when I almost killed a lizard at the Cairns Rainforest Dome. I tried toopen a gate but it only opened a few inches before it jammed. I yanked on it a few more times, but same result. That's when I noticed the two foot lizard with his head stuck in the gate. Heather stuck around to keep anyone else from trying the gate while I went for help. An employee came back and tried to free the lizard, but he was jammed in too tight. She left again to get reinforcements in the form of another employee and bolt cutters. They clipped the part of the gate holding thelizard and he appeared to be fine once free. They also mentioned it was the second time it had happened that week. I'm wondering why they haven't covered the gate with mesh or something. Anyway, we had missed the start of the koala pictures while all this was going on, so I asked one of the rescuers if that was still going on. She said the pictures were taken in the gift shop. Then she asked if we had a voucher--$13. We said no, thanks. Both of us said to each other, "didn't we just save their lizard's life? And we can't get a koala picture comped?" So we improvised and took this picture instead--for free.